multitouch

Ever heard of Microsoft Surface? I'm sure you've seen the videos before but if you haven't we have a new one below. This is the technology that brings a full capacitive multitouch tablet like surface to your coffee table, dinner table or any other large surface only our hands-on below is with a 46" tabletop.

Apple has won another crucial patent for its multitouch technology, as Patently Apple finds, that will add to its already deadly legal arsenal against Android competitors. The patent approved today involves oscillating signals and is one of the "200+ Patents for new inventions" that Steve Jobs first alluded to when the first iPhone debuted.

Gaming device manufacturer Razer has confirmed it will be offering pre-orders on its $2,799.99 Blade uber-notebook within days, with the laptop - that has a touchscreen for easier in-game control - expected to ship in time for Christmas. There's also been a quiet feature change, CEO Min-Liang Tan informed Kotaku, with a 256GB SSD taking the place of the originally specified 320GB HDD.

Samsung isn't just relying on Microsoft's second-gen Surface SUR40 for sales of its in-pixel multitouch LCD panels: the company has begun mass production of the 40-inch display, and is eyeing other potential implementations of the 50-point multitouch system. What makes Samsung's screen special is the PixelSense optical sensors, embedded in with the display itself, and capable of not only tracking multiple points of finger contact, but of capturing images of whatever objects are placed on top of it.

Samsung has put the second-gen Microsoft Surface SUR40 up for pre-order, with 23 countries - including the US and much of Europe - getting the chance to pick up the slimmed-down multitouch worksurface. Targeted at retail, healthcare, education and hospitality, the Windows 7 based table has a Full HD 1080p 40-inch display covered with a sheet of toughened Gorilla Glass.

Lenovo has outed its latest all-in-one PC, the Lenovo C325, offering a 20-inch 1600 x 900 display, AMD E450 processor and multitouch support. Priced from $699, the C325 packs AMD Radeon HD 6320 graphics along with up to 8GB of DDR3 memory and up to 1TB of storage, along with a DVD burner and SDXC memory card slot.

It's time again to talk about touchscreens on every surface imaginable, this time through Microsoft Research and Carnegie Mellon University. These groups have brought forth a solution for the age-old first-world problem of how a person who wants dial their phone using only the surface of their hand might do so. The solution is this: OmniTouch, a system that although currently requires the user to wear an obtrusive shoulder-mounted monstrosity to project and collect interfaces and the ways they interact with them, will sometime be as simple as a box of playing-cards-sized device which will work with the user to turn any surface into a touchscreen.

All eyes may be on the iPhone 4S queues this morning, but Apple's recent iOS 5 update is also prompting some feedback, and not all of it positive. iPad owners upgrading to the latest version have discovered that their first-gen tablets in fact won't get multitasking gestures, something it seems Apple has quietly updated its iOS features page to clarify.

Apple has been denied the "multi-touch" trademark, with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) deciding that it had already become generic in its usage. Although Apple attempted to trademark the term on the same day that the original iPhone was launched, January 9, 2007, the initial registration was rejected; Apple's appeal has similarly been denied, with the USPTO saying that "the examining attorney was not persuaded by applicant's showing of acquired distinctiveness."

Microsoft's Surface may be the dream multitouch dining table of many geeks, but its hefty price tag puts it out of the reach of most. Evoluce has a more affordable - well, relatively speaking - option, the Evoluce Two, and ironically it relies not only on the Surface 2.0 SDK but Microsoft's Kinect sensor bar to deliver more than 60-point multitouch on a 46-inch display.